Geopolitical risk: raw materials and technological dependence
By *Raquel Jorge Ricart
Raw materials are the great overlooked in the global technological competition.
In 1992 the father of China’s economic revolution, Deng Xiaoping, said that ‘the Middle East has the oil, but China has the rare earths’. Rare earths, and critical raw materials in general, have been the great forgotten commodities in the geopolitical competition of recent years, which has largely focused on which country dominates certain technologies –artificial intelligence, semiconductors and so many others– and not so much on what means were necessary to achieve dominance.
China controls 36.7% of global rare earth reserves. Brazil and Vietnam, the next countries on the list, together stockpile as much as China does alone (18.3% each). They are followed by Russia, with 10% of ...